Plantagon, a Stockholm-based firm developing urban agriculture systems, broke ground earlier this month on a large urban greenhouse that is intended to produce food for the city of Linköping, a city in south-central Sweden.

The building, which Plantagon will construct with engineering and design firm Sweco and in collaboration with the local public utility Tekniska Verken, will take around a year and half to build. Platagon plans to use the structure to test vertical farming concepts and to sell fruits and vegetables directly to the people of Linköping, which is home it roughly 100,000 people.

Plantagon hopes the Linköping greenhouse will eventually serve as a showcase for urban agriculture, its calling card. Sweco says the structure will stand roughly 54 meters high.

Linköping's mayor, Paul Lindvall, said at the groundbreaking ceremony that he's proud his city has been chosen as the site for the greenhouse and as a testbed for urban agriculture solutions for other cities, as well. Tekniska Verken plans to work closely with Plantagon and Sweco to develop efficient energy systems for the building, as well as ways to capture and process excess waste heat, CO2 and water.